


Many Stars In The Clear Sky

by justlikeabaroness



Category: History (Band)
Genre: Existential Angst, M/M, Oh look, the boy is introspective, what can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-17 23:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7290016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeabaroness/pseuds/justlikeabaroness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Yijeong needs to be alone, he deletes his Instagram and goes to Bukchon. He doesn't like showing Kyungil any fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Stars In The Clear Sky

He’d deleted his Instagram the morning he’d left.

He didn’t bother with Twitter; he never used the damn thing. It was more fun to use pictures to trade barbs back and forth, to tease not just him, but everyone else watching, instead of the scarily intimate direct messages they’d used to use. Yijeong has deleted every one of those; it seemed safer. 

He hasn’t gone far; he never does. He just needs to breathe; it’s not like the time he was eight and hitchhiked halfway to Busan because school was boring and he’d felt like it. He’s still in Seoul, or at least he thinks so. Bukchon is probably a suburb, but whatever, it suits him. 

An old friend had given him a key once to a fancy hanok off Samcheong-dong, and told him to keep it, and he’d obeyed. The friend is out of the country these days, but the locks still work. Every so often, Yijeong wears his rattiest jeans, his biggest sweater stolen from a warm bed, doesn’t brush his hair, and all but slinks through the door as if breaking in. 

He spends a few days there, maybe a week at a time. Sure, they’re on LOEN and no one has ever fucking heard of them, but he still stresses. He needs to breathe. This time it’s been about four days so far, and it’s been like living in suspended motion. 

Normally it’s nicer. Normally Yijeong enjoys the solitude because he knows he’ll get back to his boys, to his fans and their enjoyable but exhausting screaming for his love. But this time the silence is leaden; he spends most of the day curled up against himself, peering out a triangular window in the attic at the traffic and the couples walking on the street. Sheets of paper with half-scribbled, illegible characters are strewn in a semicircle around him, something horribly caffeinated next to his absent-minded foot, asking for trouble. He doesn’t notice.

It had been a casual remark. A friend, just bullshitting. Joking about how his members relied on him, how he was keeping them all fed with his talent. His friend had grinned, taken a slug of Dawn 808 to ward off the next morning’s hangover, and laughed, “Yijeong-ah, once you stop laying golden eggs, you might have to find new friends.”

He’d been offended, on his hyungs’ behalf and his own ( _and Kyungil’s_ ). The friend had apologized, blaming the soju. But it had stuck like a melody line in his brain. He didn’t feel leaned on - his hyungs ( _and Kyungil_ ) were too talented for that. But he’s been wrong before, and he’s been hurt before, and there’s been too much sleeping with backs to each other for him to feel too comfortable.

It’s probably just exhaustion that’s kept Kyungil quiet in public and tired at night. He knows that. 

But it could be fear.

But it could be regret.

But it could be trying to show him, in the gentlest way possible for such a tiger of a man, that he’s no longer wanted. It could be a kindness, instead of just deciding to sleep alone. 

But it could be losing interest - Instagram isn’t the place to tell someone they’ve become boring, that they’ve outlived their usefulness and novelty. After he’d posted the silent video, Kyungil’s smiles had become slippery, skating across his face instead of lingering like fingers and kisses. And he’d felt the sinking sensation of losing something.

They aren’t boyfriends; they aren’t even really lovers in the physical sense of the word. Not often, anyway. Too damn dangerous. And Yijeong learned a long time ago that he can’t afford to have a ‘muse’ - too arbitrary, too capricious; sometimes you just have to write - but being in Kyungil’s presence frees his mind somehow. The world stops being a millstone around his neck. There are times he hates it, being completely in thrall of this man who in another life would have been an arrogant, indolent king on a golden throne. But there are times it sustains him, when he lives for being protected and being sharp and jagged and bold enough to make the titan laugh and hold him close and kiss his forehead.

He moodily brushes a shock of black hair out of his eye, chicken-scratching Hangul to finish the end of a lyric. On some level, he knows he’s being stupid - he has no proof that anyone thinks he’s merely useful. But to lose royal favor, he knows, would break him. And it’s terrifying to think he’s this dependent on the caprices and whims of someone who is not himself.

Almost without thinking, he picks up his phone and shoots off a text. _I’ll be back tomorrow,_ he tells Kyungil, holding himself to the promise. _You’ll be able to sleep again._

The quickness of the reply shocks him, and sends a flicker of tranquilizer through his system. _Thank God. I miss you._

The fact that it’s in the present tense lifts a shadow from his soul - but only one. There are still a few others. Yijeong smiles softly, but only with his eyes, as if someone’s watching. _I know_ , he replies. _Watch more of our couple videos to get through, you cream puff._

He should get up. Yijeong unfolds his spindly legs from underneath him, feeling the blood rush back into them. His phone beeps. _Fuck you, you little punk._

That gets laughter from him. He doesn’t dare reply “You love me” like he might have before. But he hopes. He closes his eyes, and he hopes. He’ll turn his Instagram back on when he returns.


End file.
